Saturday, May 30, 2015

I am off to München. Indeed,
hopefully by now I’m there—assuming early Friday morning horridly stormy
weather in Greece has not landed me elsewhere.

Ah, Munich. I love that city. So much to see, so much to do,
and home to the legendary Fußball-Club Bayern München.By football I’m referring to the padless sort
drawing a religiously passionate following practically everywhere on our planet
but the United States. Bizarre, isn’t it, how this week it’s been the USA—more
specifically its Attorney General and FBI—drawing a bead on the future of the
sport.

For those of you who’ve just emerged from a time warp, this week’s
most widely covered story since mid-week has been the US’s declaration of
prosecutorial war on the leadership of an acronym that has actually achieved
world-domination. No, not ISIS or ISIL.I’m
talking about an organization exercising ultimate power over the global
aspirations of 209 independent nations, and courted by economic powers such as
Russia and Qatar as supplicants bearing gifts for its favors.

Yep, it’s FIFA.Soccer’s
Fédération Internationale de Football Association is back in the news with yet
another scandal surrounding the nearly two decades’ reign of its ultimate
ruler, Sepp Blatter. This time it’s the indictment of nine top FIFA officials
by the US Justice Department on corruption charges.Blatter is not charged (yet) but many see
this scenario as following the time-honored prosecutorial strategy of getting
those down the food chain to save themselves by making deals that will bring
down the big guy. Time will tell.

What struck me most of all about the scandal is how so few reporting
on the story seem at all surprised by the revelations.That made me wonder about how much our
values have changed in the last hundred years.

The 1919 World Series (that’s American baseball) triggered
the infamous “Black Sox Scandal,” when eight members of the Chicago White Sox
were accused of throwing games and the series to the Cincinnati Reds on behalf
of gamblers.It triggered outrage and a whole
new way of running the game.Most
poignant to me was a reported exchange outside the courthouse between one of
the players (Shoeless Joe Jackson) and a young boy who’d grabbed at his coat
sleeve and begged of him, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”

I wonder how the youth of today immersed in the game of
soccer is responding to the FIFA scandal?Sadly, I fear more with a shrug than disbelief. That seems to be the
state of sport these days…and elsewhere.

The world is full of people with power and money doing as
they please and getting away with it. The US Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens
United has put our Congressional and Executive Branches (more) into play on
their behalf.And around the world, leaders
elected on promises of reform have not proven themselves immune from the
seductions of the darker side of ultimate power.

Far too many in this world have been disappointed far too
many times, for far too long, by far too many words. “They’re all alike,” is too
often the common view held by the subjects of those in the public and private sectors charged with
leading by example.

And still we wonder why so many young are drawn to extremes of
drugs or politics—each promising a different order.What else could one expect of young lives
spent steeping in the frustrated disappointment of their elders?

We need look no further than FIFA for proof of all this.Let us not forget who has been in charge of
the world’s most popular sport, and who, by its leaders’ conduct, has shown generations
of young the rules to play by.

6 comments:

Jeff, Who even thinks about giving good example anymore? Back in the Pleistocene age, when I was a child, I heard almost daily admonitions about setting the proper behavioral tone. We don't want our grandchildren to live in a world where only losers play by the rules. I take great pride in the fact that the LONG-deserved comedown of those FIFA slime balls came from the leadership of Loretta Lynch, a woman, an American, and a legal hero who cut her prosecutorial teeth in NYC. I cheer for her! She sets the example our young should follow!

As long as our societal mores attitudes allow those who don't pay taxes to profit, those who don't play by the rules to win acclaim, and those who cheat in school to get better grades, the world will never have enough Loretta Lynches.

The 'progress' of society is not measured by how high the highest individual climbs, but rather by the distance between the 'highest' and the 'lowest.' I'm not saying that exact equality, socially and economically, is utopia, that's an entirely different nightmare, the other end of the pendulum's swing. But unfortunately, the pendulum is currently approaching THIS end of the swing. It's not pretty, but it WILL change direction, probably accompanied by a very hard THUMP! that won't be terribly fun to experience, but such is life if you live long enough...

It's always fun, though, to see a few of the Scum Bags (TM) get a peg or two pulled out from under them. :-)